The Perfect Target
by Emerald Olive
Summary: She was intelligent. She was gorgeous. She was kind and happy and full of life. She was flawless. She was exactly what I had been looking for. She was the perfect target. And I was absorbed in her...OneShot. JamesLily


**A/N: Minor DH Spoilers. A James oneshot all about his real feelings for the one and only Lily Evans. I like to think that James was actually much more in love with Lily than he ever really let on, and that his tormenting of Snape was less pointless than anyone knew. Hope you enjoy! Happy reading and please review!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I do not own Harry Potter. I do not own Harry Potter. The most depressing mantra a writer can write.**

They all seemed to think that it was just a game, a silly, childish game of 'Get the Girl'. But it never was. Everything I did, everything I said, revolved around her and her dark red hair and sparkling green eyes. And I passed it off as a game, because I was scared of what I felt. They would never understand the possibility of true love at age twelve. But I knew it was real.

She was intelligent. She was gorgeous. She was kind and happy and full of life. She was flawless. She was exactly what I had been looking for. She was the perfect target. And I was absorbed in her.

My parents had told me, from the time when I was very little, that the moment they saw each other, they knew that they were in love. They might have been exaggerating, I never really asked. But I didn't care. I wanted that. And when James Potter wanted something, he got it. When I set out for Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on September first of the year I turned eleven, I knew that I was going to find her.

When I caught my first glimpse Lily Evans I knew she was the girl that I was going to marry, no matter how much it would take, it would be her, it had to be her. And it wasn't simply because I had been looking for her either. I walked onto the platform, and there she was. And just like that, I was in love. There was no doubt in my mind that it would happen. I had this fantasy in my head that as time passed she would grow to find me irresistible, and fall as madly in love with me as I was with her. But there was a flaw in this master plan of mine.

She hated me. I think she hated me because I was so consumed with her. If I could, I would stare at her for hours on end, watching the way she moved and smiled and played with her hair and bit her lip and twirled her quill. I knew all of her idiosyncrasies and habits, and I loved her even more for them. Sirius would say that I was obsessive. But I was just in love, in love with the most beautiful creature to ever grace the surface of the earth. Though admittedly, she was a beautiful creature that seemed to loathe me. Maybe she didn't understand the possibility of true love at age twelve either. But my love for her was strong enough for the both of us…or so I thought.

Soon I found out that love is not really love when it is only one-sided. It's really just a crush. Real love is not lonely or fast-paced or scheming, it's just pure. And I knew that if only she would let me, I could make her love me.

Around fifth year, my schoolboy crush died, and it bloomed into a full-fledged blossom of untainted, unrequited love, I resorted to desperate measures.

She was always hanging out with that Snape. She never left his side. She talked to him, did homework with him, partnered with him during Potions. I hated him because he was stealing her from me, stealing away every precious moment of Lily that could have been mine. Sirius was glad to have someone to hex, a target for our latest schemes and tricks and pranks, but I don't think he ever really knew the reason why I had been so much in favor of tormenting Severus Snape. It was a game to Sirius. Everything was always a game. And Snape was a little oddity that knew more Dark Magic than the whole school combined, was friends with the Slytherin prefects when he was a first year, and who didn't wash his hair. That was what Sirius saw. I saw it all too, but there was one thing that overshadowed all of his flaws by a mile. He was friends with Lily Evans. They were best friends. He was slowly, furtively taking Lily away from me, killing my chances. He was the perfect target.

Snape hated me too. But I was perfectly alright with that because I hated him right back. I think he hated me even more than he ever let on though. Not only did I torture him for the rest of his days at Hogwarts, but he knew that we both wanted the same thing. We both wanted Lily Evans. And I think that deep down he always knew that I was going to win.

I saw what Lily didn't. He was in love with her. Because every time I watched her, he was watching too. And it made me so angry that just looking at him could make my insides boil like the cauldron of perfect potion that would inevitably be sitting in front of Lily Evans and Severus Snape at the end of every Potions lesson I would ever attend for the rest of my life. But what was worst of all was that she seemed to genuinely like him. Mind you, like a friend, because I know that she would never like him romantically, that is just disgusting.

But Lily didn't like me, even as a friend. So that made Snape one step closer than it seemed I would ever be.

But James Potter did not lose. He did not give up or give in. No matter how long it was going to take, I was going to win the girl. But it was so much more than just winning the girl. I wanted to win her because she had already won me. I do admit that I often made a fool of myself while trying to get her attention. I may have seemed selfish and arrogant and supercilious, but all I wanted was to win her. And if there was one thing I hated more than anything else, it was seeing my perfect Lily with that greasy, hook nosed git. She deserved so much better than him. She deserved someone handsome, a gentleman, someone respectful, someone _clean_, someone that would gladly drop to his knees and worship her like the goddess that she was. She deserved me, James Potter, the one and only.

There was a point where I really did almost get her. It was a routine Snape torment session, not at all uncommon, after our Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. Sirius was bored. And I jumped at any opportunity to show Lily just how powerless and repulsive her little buddy Snape was, and how much more desirable the good looking, smart boy with the Quidditch talent (ahem…me) really was.

I never expected the magnitude of the consequences of that day. But they were the better than the best I could have asked, or even hoped, for. Lily didn't speak to Snape for the next three months. After that day she didn't seem to like him as much anymore, which made me extremely happy. But as much as her fondness for Snape seemed to decrease, her fondness for me went absolutely nowhere, remaining exactly where it had been since the day that I met her.

But the problem of Severus Snape had been extinguished once and for all. James Potter had triumphed, and I was that much closer to winning the girl of my dreams. But there was still one minor flaw in my plan.

She still seemed to hate me.

I tried everything. I tried to make her jealous, tried to entertain her, tried to trick her into being alone with me. I tried anything and everything that flew into my mind, and Sirius's mind and Remus's mind and even Peter's mind, until I thought had exhausted all options. And I gave up. For the first time in his life, James Potter gave up. I gave up on the wonderful, beautiful Lily Evans because I had finally come to terms with the fact that she would never be mine.

And that was when she fell for me.

She fell hard and fast, exactly as I had planned it for seven years.

And I caught her in the arms that had been waiting expectantly ever since I first laid eyes on her.

She was the perfect target. And the arrow, after years and years of waiting and planning and wishing, had hit its mark.


End file.
